Radiophone

By the spring of 1922, gramophones were common. The next thing in entertainment was the "radiophone."


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Hobart News 27 Apr. 1922.

KYW was the first radio station in the Chicago area.

The real-estate transaction described below that ad was reported in greater detail by the next day's Gazette.


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"Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette 28 Apr. 1922.

"Near the Collver place," was it? Well, the only thing I can identify out of all this is the Collver place as it appeared in 1908:


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From the 1908 Plat Map.

I find a Fred Trapp in Gary in the 1920 Census and the 1930 Census. In neither does he describe himself as a carpenter, but I can't find anyone else by that name.


Anyway, just above that item we see that Calvin C. Shearer had started work on present-day S.R. 51, which had aroused so much interest because of its bad condition.

Over in the "Births" column, a second child for John and Lillian Call, and two Halfman babies — news that only reminds me how little I've kept track of the Halfmans of Ross Township. John and Joe were brothers, I believe: sons of Frank Halfman, and thus brothers also of young Carl Halfman, who had died in an Army camp in 1918. Their grandfather was Henry Halfman, who had arrived in Lake County by April 1860 (when his marriage was recorded), but he did not appear in the census that year. He did, however, show up in the 1870 and subsequent censuses. The 1874 Plat Map shows him owning 80 acres at the northeast corner of Broadway and 61st Ave (the parking lot of Ultra Foods, in other words). Henry and his wife, Mary, had three children: Frank, Clara, and William. We shall have news of William soon.

Joseph Halfman was born circa 1889 and married Marian Adler circa 1912-3. The child born in 1922 was either their third or fourth. As for Joe's younger brother, John, born circa 1893, he had married Clara Adler (Marian's sister) in 1915, and the child born in 1922 was their third, a son named Leo. I can't find the Joseph Halfman family in the 1920 census. The John Halfman family was running a dairy farm on rented land near his Uncle William's farm — possibly his grandfather's old place.


Additional Sources:
♦ 1860 Census.
♦ 1870 Census.
♦ 1880 Census.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1930 Census.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ "Mrs. Halfman Dies at Lowell," Hammond Times 4 Apr. 1940. Newspaperarchive.com.

Lights on the Ainsworth Road

One of the matters up for discussion at Hobart's town board meeting on March 10, 1919, was a petition from residents along the Ainsworth road, i.e., State Road 51 between Hobart and Ainsworth. The petition was signed, according to the News, by "S.R. Collver, Chas. Sapper, Dave Vinegar, Harvey Auton, David Cox, M.H. Smith, H.W. Bracken, W.G. Bracken, J.C. Kellen, Jos. Hudson, H.L. Ryan, Robert Reichert, V. Miscevich, Mike Drakulich, and George Hayward." They were asking for four electric lights to be installed on the part of the Ainsworth road described as lying "between the Sapper corner and the Peddicord farm." I suppose the Sapper corner is about where S.R. 51 turns south from 10th Street. The 1926 Plat Book doesn't show enough detail in that area to be helpful, so let us turn to the 1939 Plat Book, in which some holdings may have grown, shrunk or changed hands, but we can see some names that correspond to the 1919 report.


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This excerpt from the 1939 Plat Book shows, at the top, 10th Street intersecting with Lake Park Avenue, aka S.R. 51, formerly known as the Ainsworth road.

The town board accepted the petition and instructed the superintendent of Hobart's power plant, Robert Wheaton, to draw up an estimate of the project's cost.

He did so within two weeks, and at the March 24 meeting, the town board faced the question whether they ought to spend $76.32 on lights for the Ainsworth road. After due consideration, they ordered that the lights be installed.


Sources:
♦ "Town Board Doings." Hobart Gazette 14 Mar. 1919; 28 Mar. 1919.
♦ "Town Board Doings." Hobart News 13 Mar. 1919.